GLEN BURNIE, Md. — Living near BWI Marshall Airport has meant a constant roar of airliners flying over homes in Anne Arundel and Howard counties for the past two years.
Now, Maryland’s two senators and seven of the state’s congressmen are getting involved.
Senators Chris Van Hollen and Ben Cardin plus Congressmen Steny Hoyer, Elijah Cummings, Dutch Ruppersberger, John Sarbanes, John Delaney, Anthony Brown and Jamie Raskin signed on to a letter sent to the Federal Aviation Administration on Wednesday requesting that flight patterns be returned to the way they were before NextGen was implemented in 2015.
NextGen was designed to make flying more efficient and reduce costs. But the program has meant that planes flying into and out of BWI Marshall follow the same, consistent path, which takes the planes directly over homes.
“It’s really making it unliveable in many ways,” Van Hollen told WTOP.
The delegation wants to restore the old patterns, which did not have as much of an impact on neighborhoods near the airport.
It is ultimately the FAA’s decision to alter flight patterns, which the delegation is hopeful the agency will agree to do.
“If they don’t, we’re going to have to look for ways to push the FAA to do the right thing,” Van Hollen said.
Montgomery County has also been dealing with similar flight pattern issues, with the constant flow of planes following the Potomac River into Reagan National Airport.
